Formula Zero Championship Student Edition Gearing Up

I had talked previously about the Formula Zero fuel cell racing demonstration project developed by Godert van Hardenbroek and Eelco Rietveld. I also followed up with a post last September about how a Formula Zero Go-Kart broke the world record by coming in at 11.591 seconds in the 1/8 mile sprint at a top speed of 38 mph and was able to achieve speeds of up to 75 mph around the oval track.

Now, Formula Zero wants to up the ante by involving several universities in an actual race. The fuel cell racing organization has invited UCLA and Lawrence to the 2008 Formula Zero Championship, Student Edition. These top universities will build a race kart around using the same Hydrogenics HyPM8 Fuel Cell. Formula Zero currently has 15 universities competing in its design competition as well.

The idea behind Formula Zero racing is to progressively scale up the size of its vehicles and venues, so that by 2015 Formula One events will be competing with full-fledged Formula Zero fuel cell events. Eiso Vaandrager was good enough to point me towards this video of a Formula Zero record breaking attempt that appeared on Discovery’s Future Car edition.